


How can i keep from singing? (i always had poetry in my life)

by RosadelValle



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Drabbles, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Canonical Character(s), Poetry, more to come - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:25:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosadelValle/pseuds/RosadelValle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles inspired by poems.<br/>My headcanon Hannibal is a conoisseur of poetry, poems and verses are always in his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The boy i loved

When he returned to Florence with Bedelia, the very moment his feet touched the old stones of those narrow streets, he didn't think of Will.   

He thought of the first lover of his distant years as a student, the elusive Lorenzo: Lorenzo il Magnifico, a nomen omen that didn't suit the quiet and lymphatic nature of its owner. Hannibal had chosen him because he had a pretty face but an exquisite body, and there was something in his silence that touched his very core. Lorenzo, unlike Will, accepted demons as a part of his nature and didn't linger in useless attempts to fit in or correct his flaws, didn't try to understand the dark thing inside of him; he just lived and accepted. He accepted Hannibal in his life for a brief affair, just like that, then vanished.    

Wondering where he may be now, Hannibal tells himself that he's probably dead, and not of a natural cause.

 

_Où donc est-il parti_

_L'amoureux que j'avais_

_Qui me faisait plaisir_

_Qui me faisait rêver_

_Qui me faisait danser_

_Danser à sa baguette_

_C'était mon chef d'orchestre_

_Moi son corps de ballet_

 

Lorenzo taught him the taste for lean boys with wide eyes. They danced sometimes.

 


	2. A lover like a Leviathan

Even though Will had dug his way to Hannibal's soul since the first time they met, his desire for him kept wavering like water. Its oscillations corresponding Will's moments of consciousness of his nature, from the climax of Randall Tier's murder to the fall of the betrayal.

Will had always been with him, he saw him in his future even when everything seemed to be doomed, but there was an istant of perfect and complete clarity: the Killing of the Dragon. In that moment Hannibal knew that Will was, beyond a doubt, the lover he needed.

 

_I need a lover capable of wrapping the linen of the sky around his hand_

_and hang up like a torch the Candle of Eternity ,_

_capable of fighting like a lion, valiant as the Leviathan,_

_vanquishing everyone, then fighting with himself too._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a poem by Gialal Ad-Din Rumi
> 
> The english translation is mine, since i couldn't find it, so it may be a little rough.


	3. Pain restarts

Before Will he felt like he was God's chosen enemy: strong, superb, rightful. He was obviously alone but he couldn't be lonely: his status and purpose were a suitable company. After Misha he didn't need pain anymore, her horrible loss paradoxically made him whole: the teacup broke, but he composed himself around that incident. After Will he was forced to break himself again, the cracks in his building aching again. He wasn't complete after all, nor above the natural longing for a companion.

Hannibal could see Will standing beside Jack from his car, cops and mess around them. He sighed and embraced the pain.

 

_Il tuo passo leggero ha riaperto il dolore._

_Era fredda la terra sotto povero cielo, era immobile e chiusa in un torpido sogno, come chi più non soffre._

_Anche il gelo era dolce dentro il cuore profondo._

_Tra la vita e la morte la speranza taceva._

_Ora ha una voce e un sangue_

_ogni cosa che vive  ._

_Sangue di primavera,_

_tutta la terra trema di un antico tremore._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem by Cesare Pavese
> 
> Your light step  
> has reopened sorrow.  
> The earth was cold  
> under an impoverished sky,  
> motionless and closed  
> into a torpid dream  
> like one who suffers no longer.  
> In the deep heart  
> even the frost was sweet.  
> Between life and death  
> hope stayed silent.  
> Now every living thing  
> has voice and blood.  
> Blood of springtime,  
> the whole earth trembles  
> with an ancient tremor.


	4. Had i been your father

Hannibal often reflected upon Will's empathy: it was an ugly paradox how it was both honey for him and poison to Will, an unwanted gift he used to catch criminals due to his sense of justice (something Hannibal suspected was more instilled and learnt than natural). Probably, when he was just a little boy and people saw his peculiarity, they told him that a different person can only fit in if really useful. They made him a martyr: he had to suffer to help a system that didn't want him, with nothing in return, for the sake of being on the good side.

A better family would have prevented this, had Hannibal been Will's father things would have gone differently: no sleepwalking, no depression. Just shining beauty and untamed grace. He would have taught how to hunt, how to chase beauty and the true form of justice: armony  through strenght. But he can teach him now, Will may still be the force of nature he was meant to be.

 

_Close your eyes, my love, let me make you blind!_

_They have taught you to see_

_Only problems writ on the face of things,_

_And algebra in the eyes of desirous men,_

_And God like geometry_

_Tangling his circles to baffle you and me._

 

_I would kiss you over they eyes till I kissed you blind;_

_If I could--if anyone could!_

_Then perhaps iin the dark you'd get what you want to find:_

_The solution that ever is much too deep for the mind;_

_Dissolved in blood..._

_That I am the hart, and you are the gentle hind._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These clever women, a poem by D H Lawrence

**Author's Note:**

> C'est l'amour qui m'a faite - Jacques Prévert
> 
> Where's gone the boy i had once  
> he made me love  
> he made me dream  
> he made me dance  
> ordering me to dance  
> He was my conductor  
> and i was his corps de ballet


End file.
